91. Folklore's Most Wicked Witches

Have you heard about Baba Yaga who lives in the forrest in Russia and eats children down to the bone? What about the witch in Mexico who is responsible for men's disappearances to this very day. Today, we're diving into three scary tales of Witches Show Notes: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/wickedwitches Subscribe on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/heartstartspoundingfor bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to bonus content as well as other perks. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to bonus episodes and more when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@heartstartspounding?lang=enand Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heartstartspounding/ for a daily dose of horror.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by Primally Pure. I feel like every time I run out of a product in my bathroom, I have this moment where I go, okay, do I just order the same thing? Or do I finally make a better swap? And that thinking is exactly what got me into Primally Pure. They're a female-founded brand that keeps it really simple. Fewer, better ingredients, and nothing you can't pronounce. I just got an order from Primally Pure and I am obsessed with their lip oil. I also got Eucalyptus and Lavender Body Butter, which has spa vibes for sure. If you want an easy starting point, their Clean Start Bundle is a great place to start. For under $50, you get three everyday essentials. Their best-selling aluminum-free deodorant, a mini body butter, and the lip oil that I love. It's also a really thoughtful gift

• 0:44Kaelyn Moore?

  if you know someone who's been wanting to clean up their routine. Use code HSP to get 15% off your Primally Pure purchase. That's www.p-r-i-m-a-l-l-y-p-u-r-e.com and use code HSP at checkout for 15% off your order. It was a sunny spring morning in the rural county of Lancashire, England. Six-year-old Mary Fenwick was at the edge of her family's farm playing with a hoop-and-stick toy that she borrowed from her brother Jack without his permission. As she crested a hill, the hoop sped up, rolling out of reach. Mary chased after it, falling further and further behind, until it teetered and fell, landing with an unexpected splash.

• 1:28Kaelyn Moore?

  Mary skidded to a stop. A short distance away, the hoop floated amidst a sea of green. What looked like a grassy field was actually a small lank blanketed in pond weed. Mary's parents had warned her about ponds like this. The countryside was full of them, and if you weren't paying attention, you could walk right in. But as she eyed the pond, it was her brother Jack's voice that echoed in her mind. "You know why Mom and Dad won't let us play near the water, don't you?" It's because she's in there, the witch. She grabs kids who wander too close, drags them to her lair and eats them. That's why they call her Wicked Jenny.

• 2:14Kaelyn Moore?

  The name alone sent shivers down Mary's spine. But, she thought, Jack just told her stories like that to scare her. And she was older now and braver. She wasn't gonna fall for it. Jack's hoop was still drifting across the pond, further and further from the shore. Mary hurried after it, edging along the bank. And when she was as close as she could get, she leaned out, reaching with her stick. But it was no use. Frustrated, she eyed the hoop, still just out of reach. She looked at the murky, black water, covered in pond scum. And a small bubble reached the surface from underneath, and it popped.

• 2:55Kaelyn Moore?

  Taking a big breath, she gathered her courage, knelt down, unbuckled her shoes, set them on the bank, hiked up her skirt, and she waded into the pool. Mud squelched between Mary's toes as she fought through the web of vegetation. Finally, she could reach far enough, and her fingers closed around the hoop. She turned and scampered back out, grinning with relief. "Silly Jack, there was no witch in this pond." But as she stepped onto dry land, something slimy and cold curled around her ankle, like the pond scum had come to life. Mary looked back over her shoulder and screamed.

• 3:40Kaelyn Moore?

  A pair of large, yellow eyes were poking out of the water, staring at her through stringy hair. It was a woman, with green, rotting skin hanging limp from sallow cheeks. For a moment, the woman was still, her cold hand holding Mary's ankle below the surface. But then, the hag leered at her with dagger-like teeth and dug her nails in further. With a sharp jerk, the witch dragged Mary into the pond. The girl's screams died as she disappeared beneath the water. Within moments, the surface stilled, pondweed reforming in her wake. And one single bubble rose to the surface and popped.

• 4:25Kaelyn Moore?

  The only evidence of anything amiss was the pair of shoes resting on the bank and the hoop floating nearby.

• 4:39Kaelyn Moore?

  This is Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I'm your host, Kayla Moore. Wicked Jenny is said to be responsible for countless missing children in England. She pulls them out of sight and into the water when they've wandered away from their parents. She's green and mean, like another wicked witch I know of. With Wicked coming out, it made me wonder, what are the wickedest witches who ever walked our earth? And the stories I found are chilling. I'm talking creatures in the woods who eat children down to the bone, a witch in Mexico who's supposedly still responsible for the deaths of young men, and a town in America that suffered a missing children epidemic.

• 5:22Kaelyn Moore?

  We're gonna get right into it, and as always, listener discretion is advised.

• 5:30Kaelyn Moore?

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• 6:13Kaelyn Moore?

  To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole-body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/hsp and use code HSP. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O dot com slash HSP. Terms and conditions apply.

• 6:31Kaelyn Moore?

  Our first witch comes from Slavic folklore, and she's as infamous as she is wicked. She's known as Baba Yaga, a name that's often translated as grandmother witch. Like a lot of classic fairy tale witches, she's an old crone who lives in the woods, casts magic spells, and eats children. But Baba Yaga is anything but typical. She is far more powerful, menacing, and stranger than the witch tales you were raised with. The best way to get to know her is through her most famous folk tale. It's a story about grief and fear and perseverance, a story told to remind Russian and Polish children that bad things happen to boys and girls who go into the woods at night.

• 7:16Kaelyn Moore?

  This is the tale of Vasilia the Beautiful. Twelve-year-old Vasilia stomped down the snow-laden path, breath fogging as she headed deeper into the forest. An icy wind swept through the trees, chilling her to the bone and causing her to hug her doll tighter. It was a terrible night to be out in the woods, but Vasilia's stepmother had sent her on an errand. She was supposed to borrow a candle from their neighbor so she could relight their furnace. The neighbor, they called Baba Yaga. When Vasilia's birth mother was still alive, she warned her to stay away from Baba Yaga's house. The villagers said she was an ogre, and if you caught her in a bad mood,

• 8:00Kaelyn Moore?

  she would eat you, bones and all. Vasilia didn't believe in ogres, but she doubted her stepmother would mind if she was eaten by one. The woman had waited until Vasilia's father was out of town and then sent her on an errand in the middle of a snowstorm. She probably expected Vasilia to freeze to death, but the girl was determined to complete the task. She would get the candle, return home, and show her stepmother that she wasn't going anywhere. And if Baba Yaga did turn out to be an ogre, well, Vasilia had a way of dealing with that too. See, the doll she carried was magic. At least, her mother had told her that it was.

• 8:44Kaelyn Moore?

  She had given the doll to Vasilia on her deathbed, along with the promise that Vasilia would never be harmed as long as she kept it with her. The girl swore the doll had other magical powers as well, though. Sometimes, she would fall asleep before she finished her chores, only to wake and find that they were done, like the doll had completed them in the night. Vasilia held her doll close to her chest and trusted that it would protect her from Baba Yaga. But it wasn't much help against the cold. Just as her lips were turning blue, she glimpsed a light flickering through the trees. Desperate for a bit of warmth,

• 9:28Kaelyn Moore?

  she dashed ahead, until she emerged from the trees and came to an abrupt stop. Standing before her, at the center of the clearing, was the strangest house Vasilia had ever seen. The small, log hut towered over the clearing on a pair of slender trees, like it was a giant treehouse. And the fence surrounding the house was made entirely of bones. Lanterns fashioned from human skulls stood atop each post, eyes flickering with an eerie menace. Vasilia stood frozen in terror, clutching her doll like a shield. Before she could move,

• 10:12Kaelyn Moore?

  there was a sound like rushing wind. The trees of the clearing parted, and a woman emerged from the forest. For a moment, Vasilia could only stare. Baba Yaga wasn't an ogre, but she was ugly enough to be one. She had an obscenely long, hooked nose, heavy wrinkled gray skin, and more age spots and warts than Vasilia could count. A few strands of white hair poked from her headscarf, and she smelled of rot. Glancing down, Vasilia saw that the witch's leg was decayed, exposing the bone underneath.

• 10:53Kaelyn Moore?

  She approached Vasilia, getting so close the girl could smell her rotting stench. "I thought I smelled Russian flesh," Baba Yaga snarled, licking her black iron teeth. It was too late to turn and run, so Vasilia gathered her courage and bowed. She then introduced herself, explaining that it was her stepmother that had sent her to borrow a lit candle so they could reignite their furnace. As Vasilia spoke, Baba Yaga's grimace curled into a grin. "I'll give you a light," she said, "if you'll work for it." And then she turned and sped towards the house, beckoning for Vasilia to follow.

• 11:35Kaelyn Moore?

  And as Vasilia neared the gate, the closest skull lantern pivoted towards her, and the light within it suddenly grew brighter, until Baba Yaga snapped her fingers. "The girl's with me," she said, and the light died and the gate flew open. So the interior of the house was surprisingly homey and mercifully warm. A black dog, sleeping by the stove, lifted its head and growled as they entered. But again Baba Yaga snapped her fingers and it went silent. The witch wasted no time putting Vasilia to work. Her first task was preparing dinner: a pot of borscht, a side of beef,

• 12:17Kaelyn Moore?

  ten jugs of milk, one roast pig, twenty chickens, forty geese, ale, beer, and cider. Baba Yaga sucked it all down, leaving just a crust of bread for Vasilia. Not that she had time to enjoy it, because, once she finished cleaning up from dinner, Baba Yaga gave her an extensive list of chores. If Vasilia could complete them by morning, she could leave with the candle she requested. If not, though, Baba Yaga would eat her. With that said, the old witch flopped down on her massive feather bed and began to snore. For the briefest moment, Vasilia looked around, paralyzed by the enormity of her task.

• 12:59Kaelyn Moore?

  And then she moved, attacking the list with gusto. She fed the cat, then the dog, she tended the garden, and oiled the gate, and at last, she reached the final task. Pick through a massive sack of millet by hand, separating the tan seeds from the black seeds. The task alone could take days, she realized, and dawn was just hours away. Baba Yaga had set her up to fail, and now she was going to be eaten. But Vasilia refused to give up. She started furiously picking through the seeds, sorting them into tuna piles.

• 13:39Kaelyn Moore?

  But she'd been working for hours, her movements were growing sluggish, and finally, her eyelids fluttered shut. The next thing Vasilia knew, the sunlight was streaming through the window, and Baba Yaga was standing over her. "Well, did you finish?" the witch demanded. Vasilia opened her mouth to confess that she had not, until she noticed the two piles of millet sitting beside her, one tan and one black. Her mother's doll had come to her rescue during the night and had completed the task. "I have finished," Vasilia announced, and she watched as Baba Yaga's expression shifted

• 14:24Kaelyn Moore?

  to disbelief and then fury. "Impossible," she snarled. "Now I'm going to eat you just for making me mad." Baba Yaga demanded that Vasilia fire up the stove, and then she stormed out of the room. As soon as she was gone, Vasilia grabbed her doll and bolted for the front door. The black dog lifted its head as she ran past, but it didn't move from its spot. She had fed it the night before, and so now it knew she was a friend. And since she had oiled the gate the night before as well, it made no noise as she slipped out. As she shut the gate, Vasilia snatched one of the flaming skulls from the fence.

• 15:07Kaelyn Moore?

  There was no way she was going home without a light after all she had been through. But just then, Baba Yaga's howl rose from the hut. Vasilia didn't look back. She dashed into the woods and kept running until her own house came into view. Her stepmother and stepsisters looked up as she barreled through the door. "What took you so long? We've been freezing." Her stepmother snapped. No concern for Vasilia's safety, just anger she didn't get there faster. Before Vasilia could respond, the eyes of the Skull Lantern began to glow again.

• 15:46Kaelyn Moore?

  The jaw fell open and a jet of fire erupted outwards, shooting right at her family. Her stepmother and stepsisters fell to their knees, screaming as the flames consumed them. Vasilia backed away, clutching her doll once again to her chest while the lights of the fire danced in its black button eyes. There was nothing she could do to put out the flames. She and her doll watched in horror as her stepfamily was burned to ash. When the fire died down, Vasilia buried what was left of the bodies in the backyard along with the Skull Lantern. A few days later, her father came home and she told him everything.

• 16:31Kaelyn Moore?

  And after that, they moved far, far away. And Vasilia never saw Baba Yaga again. And that's just one version of Vasilia's story that was passed around Eastern European communities for generations. And I do recommend checking out the full tale. One thing that's interesting to note about this story, though, is while Baba Yaga was said to be a dangerous and bloodthirsty witch, at the end of the day, she sort of did help Vasilia. And that's the thing about Baba Yaga. She's wicked, yes, but in a lot of stories, she's surprisingly helpful. Like an evil fairy godmother who intervenes in the most horrifying way possible by barbecuing your stepmom.

• 17:16Kaelyn Moore?

  You can't trust her to not eat you, but if you keep your wits and your end of the bargain, she might just save your life. Because love her or fear her, she knows best.

• 17:32Kaelyn Moore?

  This episode is brought to you by SiJoo. A new season always makes me want to reset things. My space, my routine, how my mornings feel. And honestly, upgrading my bedding has made a big difference. And that's why I have been loving SiJoo Home. I have the Aerie Weight Eucalyptus Sheets from SiJoo. They have a lightweight feel, cool to the touch texture. And now my bed feels like a real reset at the end of a long day. I know that every little bit of improvement I can do with my sleep routine makes a huge difference. And so I'm so happy I was able to get SiJoo Sheets. The Aerie Weight Sheets are made with Tencel Liocell. They're doctor recommended, Ecotec certified, and even HSA and FSA eligible, which I genuinely did not know was a thing for bedding. And if you're someone who prefers a more lived in texture,

• 18:15Kaelyn Moore?

  their Luxe Weave French Linen Sheets are stone washed and get softer with every wash. Really beautiful for a bedroom refresh. Go to sijohome.com and use code HSP to get 20% off your first order. That's S-I-J-O-H-O-M-E.com and use code HSP for 20% off at checkout. Our next witch comes from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. And she's different from Baba Yaga in almost every way imaginable. Instead of an ugly crone, she appears as a beautiful woman in a white dress with long black hair and a siren voice to lure those who cross her path. They call her Ashdabai. She's both a witch and a jungle demon.

• 18:57Kaelyn Moore?

  A spirit of the wilderness that's haunted the Yucatan since the time of the ancient Mayans. And yet, people still fear her today, over 2,000 years later, because it's said that she still lurks in the jungles of Mexico, luring in men and killing them. And in fact, there are recent stories of her doing just that, like this one.

• 19:23Kaelyn Moore?

  This story occurred in the 1990s in the city of Merida. One morning, a frantic woman, we'll call her Sofia, walked into the Comchen Police Station with her trio of young children. She approached the front desk and told the officer she wanted to report a missing person. Her husband, Isidro, hadn't come home the previous evening, and this wasn't like him. His friends often headed to the bar after work, but Isidro never went with them, and he always came straight home. Sofia had already called their neighbors and local hospitals to see if anyone had been brought in, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

• 20:06Kaelyn Moore?

  The police took down the information, but didn't offer much help. "He probably got drunk and wandered off," they said. "No need to worry." So Sofia decided to take matters into her own hands. She contacted family and friends and put together a large search party. Together, they combed the road between Isidro's house and the bus stop where he waited each day, scouring the area for any clues. Maybe he had dropped a wallet, she thought, as she scanned the tall grass near the road, but deep down, she was afraid that she would stumble upon his body. See, in this area, multiple men had gone missing,

• 20:50Kaelyn Moore?

  and usually, their bodies were found inside the jungle, torn to pieces. It kind of made sense. The area was home to jaguars, pumas, and ocelots. Even the search party was afraid to go too deep into the overgrown woods. Sofia had already wondered if some animal could have surprised Isidro on the way to work and dragged his body into the trees, but there were no tracks and no blood that indicated that. After three days, the search party was called off. Sofia went to sleep that night with the unsettling fear that she might never know what happened to her husband.

• 21:34Kaelyn Moore?

  The next morning, a group of teens were walking the road to the bus stop when they spotted something up ahead. A stooped figure was sitting on a rock beneath a seba tree. It was Isidro, severely dehydrated and malnourished, but alive. Sofia got the call and rushed to the hospital with her family. Isidro was agitated and confused, but showed no signs of injury. When Sofia asked where he had been, he couldn't tell her. The last thing he remembered was walking home along the highway after work. He was just passing the sabah tree when he heard a soft voice calling from the jungle,

• 22:19Kaelyn Moore?

  repeating his name. "Isidro, Isidro." He turned, eyes sweeping the tree line, but he was alone. Isidro chalked it up to exhaustion and just turned back around. But not five feet away, a woman stood beneath the tree. She wore a simple, white dress. She had silky black hair that stretched down to her ankles, concealing most of her face. But the sliver he did see was beautiful. "Isidro," she repeated in that strange, musical voice. "You look tired. My home is not far. Come, you can rest and regain your strength."

• 23:05Kaelyn Moore?

  Isidro frowned, as they were still miles from town, and he didn't know of any houses nearby. When he asked the woman where she lived, she just smiled, and turned, and pointed up to the jungle-covered mountains. In the hospital room, Isidro fell silent, staring into space, like he was reliving the memory. When Sofia demanded to know what he said to this woman, he just shook his head. He couldn't remember. After the woman invited him home, Asidro blacked out, and he woke up beneath the sabah tree five days later.

• 23:46Kaelyn Moore?

  So this was hardly a satisfying explanation as far as Sofia was concerned. Her relief at finding him alive was completely gone and replaced by a horrible suspicion. Did he go home with this strange woman from the woods? Was he off having an affair while she organized a whole search party? Was any of his story even true to begin with? Did he really just go on a five-day bender and dream all this up while he was passed out in a ditch? And Asidro was no help. He stuck to his story, insisting that he'd been sober when he met this woman, but he didn't remember anything else.

• 24:28Kaelyn Moore?

  So Sofia wanted to keep pressing, but he was exhausted, and she let it drop. Once the hospital released him, she brought him home to recover. A few days later, Sofia was recounting this story to some older relatives. She knew that it looked bad, like she was a wife who searched all over for her missing husband while he was at his mistress's place. But as she got into Asidro's meeting with the strange woman, the elders raised their eyebrows, almost in a knowing expression. They had heard stories just like this one ever since they were little.

• 25:11Kaelyn Moore?

  They knew of the woman he was speaking of. And when Sofia pressed them on it, they told her a story that was stranger than anything she'd expected. Over 1,000 years ago, before any Europeans arrived in the Yucatan, Merida was the site of a Mayan city. Two beautiful sisters lived there who could not have been more different from each other. Ishqiban was outgoing, warm, and charitable. She gave generously to the poor and she took care of sick animals. But she also had a reputation in her community for being promiscuous and had a revolving door of boyfriends, or so they described her as having.

• 25:55Kaelyn Moore?

  And these boyfriends were sometimes regarded as lowlifes and drunks. Her neighbors called her a harlot and they threatened to run her out of town. Meanwhile, her sister, Utskolil, was the total opposite. She was cold and she was self-centered, but she was chaste. She never cared about anyone but herself, and yet, people in the community kissed the ground she walked on because of her purity. At one point, the kind-hearted Ishqiban stopped showing up in town. And when her neighbors stopped by her house to check on her, they found a strangely fragrant smell wafting from the windows.

• 26:36Kaelyn Moore?

  Ishqiban's body was inside, being watched over by the animals that she had taken care of in life. It's unclear how she died, but a strange flower had grown to cover her body. The townsfolk were amazed. Despite her questionable behavior, her sweet smell in death proved that she was a holy person, they said. They called it a miracle, and they decided that they had been wrong about her all along. As an apology for mistreating her, they threw her a massive funeral, after which, more of the flowers grew from her grave. All of this attention made Utskolil extremely jealous.

• 27:19Kaelyn Moore?

  She started saying that when she died, her body would smell even better, since it hadn't been tainted by sleeping with countless strange men. Kind of a tactless thing to say about your recently-dead sister, but she couldn't have been more wrong. When Utskolil did die a year later, her body gave off a putrid, rancid odor that covered the whole town. After they buried her, it seeped through the soil and killed any flowers left by her tombstone. In their place, an ugly cactus grew that continued to give off the pungent smell.

• 27:58Kaelyn Moore?

  After that, people changed their tune about Utskollel pretty quick. Her purity was totally forgotten and all anyone could talk about was how self-centered she had been. They never guessed that her spirit was listening, seething with fury. The ghost of Utskollel fled the village in a rage, disappearing into the jungle. She decided that if the villagers preferred her promiscuous sister so much, she would become just like her. In the dark of the jungle, the ghost became known as the horrible demon witch known as the Eshtabai. Ever since, the Eshtabai haunts the area.

• 28:41Kaelyn Moore?

  She preys on men who cross her path, especially drunks and men of Mayan descent. She seduces them with her hypnotic voice and lures them into the jungle. Once she's had her way with them, the Eshtabai delivers a horrific death. She eats their hearts or throws their bodies off the nearest cliff or down a well into the underworld. In some stories, she transforms into a giant snake and swallows them whole. Pretty wild, but that's the stories Sofia's relatives told her. They were sure that Isidro had encountered the Eshtabai. And I don't know if Sofia really believed that because the record ends there.

• 29:23Kaelyn Moore?

  But whatever happened, I can imagine the gap in Isidro's story would have been tough to live with. If he did meet an Eshtabai, maybe the fact that he survived means that he stayed faithful to his wife. Maybe she let him pass since he wasn't a drunk or didn't have Mayan blood. Or maybe the witch knew that sending Isidro home would cause even more damage than killing him. That the pain of not knowing would gnaw at Sofia forever.

• 29:59Kaelyn Moore?

  If there's a lesson to the Eshtebai's legend, it's that the witch didn't learn hers. She chose to emulate her sister's promiscuity rather than her kindness, failing to recognize how jealousy and selfishness caused her to rot from the inside. Her story reminds us that wickedness isn't always ugly, and evil doesn't just come from the wilderness. It's born close to home, inside human hearts.

• 30:30Kaelyn Moore?

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• 31:14Kaelyn Moore?

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• 31:32Kaelyn Moore?

  For our last story, let's head over to the United States, a country with no shortage of wicked witches. In towns all over the US, people whisper about the spirit of a witch that haunts the nearby woods. While the details of these legends change from place to place, you'll find a familiar refrain. "The witch was a talented healer, a woman who provided folk medicine to the community. But because she was different, or she was ugly, or she lived outside of the town, people decided that she was evil. They persecuted her and killed her." And it was that crime, that ignorance, that turned her into a vengeful spirit.

• 32:16Kaelyn Moore?

  It's like these legends are America's way of grappling with its bloody past. The fact that in the 17th century, many towns murdered innocent women in senseless witch trials. So I actually come from a place like that. My hometown is the site of the first witch hanging on US soil. Alice Young lived right down the road from me, and she was my age when she was hanged in 1647, 45 years before the Salem witch trials. So I've seen how this kind of trauma still lingers. The guilt and fear never go away. They fester. And I think it explains why, in so many American legends, the witch is also a victim. She doesn't start out wicked. She's not evil. She's just misunderstood.

• 33:02Kaelyn Moore?

  Well, this is not one of those stories. It begins in the 1930s, in the town of Gadsden, Alabama. Across the country, Americans were suffering from the Great Depression. But Gadsden was booming. Heavy government subsidies created a lot of construction jobs. Because of that, people were flooding the area for work. But while it was still growing, Gadsden was still a small town at heart. Travel a few miles south of Broad Street, and you'd hit dairy farms. A few miles north, then you would find dense woods that went on and on. For the old timers, those woods had long been off limits.

• 33:45Kaelyn Moore?

  Parents told their kids to steer clear of the trees. But the newcomers either didn't hear those warnings, or they ignored them. And slowly, their children started to disappear. It was just a trickle at first. First, one child went missing. Perhaps he fell into a river while out playing. But then two, then three, then a half dozen. It wasn't until someone at the local paper put it together that they realized the children of Gadsden were disappearing at a rate much higher than the rest of the country. No one knew what was going on. Was there a serial killer in their town?

• 34:30Kaelyn Moore?

  Were kids just running away? Well, one day, a young boy named Elijah came running into town, scratches all over his face, his shirt torn to shreds. He had been playing in the woods with his brother, and they had seen something. They caught a glimpse of a large black dog out for a walk with its owner. The strange woman also appeared to live out in the woods. She was young and beautiful, with raven black hair and emerald eyes. But the young boy said, as she walked back towards her property, he noticed the arm of a young child sticking out of the dirt.

• 35:14Kaelyn Moore?

  He turned and ran as fast as he could, but now he couldn't find his brother. "Oh, that's Sarah Torbit," the adults told him. According to the old timers, Sarah and her infant son lived in a cabin a short distance from Hines Road. No one knew who her son's father was, and that caused some side glances from people in town. So Sarah thought it was just best to live further away from everyone. One of the elders told him that there was nothing to worry about, that Sarah was just an odd woman who lived in the woods. But another woman disagreed. She had a hunch that Sarah had something to do with the missing children.

• 35:59Kaelyn Moore?

  Under increasing pressure, the mayor of Gadsden held a town hall to address the problem, and everyone from the community came. Some parents even arrived holding the missing flyer of their child, including the parents of the little boy who lost his brother in the woods. They were quick to bring up the issue of Sarah, but the newer residents tried to brush it aside. They wanted solutions, not a witch hunt. But then, the old woman stood up, and what she had to say had everyone in silence.

• 36:35Kaelyn Moore?

  The woman had lived in Gadston since she was a young girl. And even back then, her parents told her to stay clear of the woods and the woman who lived inside. The one with emerald eyes and raven hair who went by the name Torbit. The newer residents weren't exactly impressed by this revelation. Everyone knew Sarah's family had lived in the area for a long time. That woman was probably her grandmother. But the old woman disagreed. She said, "The woman who lived in the woods back then looked exactly like the Sarah Torbit they knew in 1939. Eighty years later, she hadn't aged a day."

• 37:19Kaelyn Moore?

  This, she said, "was proof that her parents' warnings were true." Torbit was a witch who had sold her soul to the devil in exchange for eternal youth. For close to a century, she had been murdering the children of Gadston and using their bones and blood in her occult rituals. And with more people moving in, she was only getting stronger. The town hall erupted into chatter. "That's ridiculous," someone shouted. But Elijah knew what he saw in the woods. The definitive sight of a child's arm, covered in dirt, sticking out of the ground like

• 38:03Kaelyn Moore?

  it was reaching for him to come save him. He worried about where his brother was. When the meeting finally ended, his parents left the hall, holding on to each other. Elijah walked behind them, kicking rocks on the ground. When he heard something coming from the tree line next to the town hall. A laugh.

• 38:28Kaelyn Moore?

  He looked to his right and could see the moon reflecting off the strange sight of a woman with raven hair, bent over backwards in a bridge position, her upside-down face twisted into a frightening grin. The boy stopped and looked at her, and she gave another laugh.

• 38:51Kaelyn Moore?

  And then she scuttled back into the woods like a spider. That night, the boy told his father what he had seen, and his father believed him. He knew something was going on with Sarah, and he was determined to find out what. So he organized a small search party with his neighbors. And that same evening, they set off into the woods to find the woman. Night was falling as they neared the woman's cabin. The men were hurrying down the path, torches in hand. A breeze was rustling through the leaves when they smelled an overpowering stench. It was coming from a small cave, hidden amongst the trees. One of the men volunteered to go check it out.

• 39:37Kaelyn Moore?

  He took a torch and he crept inside while the others waited. He'd only been gone a few minutes when they heard his blood-curdling scream. The man came sprinting out of the cave, face pale, eyes wide with terror. When they asked what he had seen, he just shook his head and whimpered. He'd been struck completely mute. Before anyone else could investigate the cave, there were more shouts from further up the path. Part of the group had continued on and had come across a small pond with dark objects floating in the water. Then, the moon peeked from behind the clouds, flooding the pond with light.

• 40:22Kaelyn Moore?

  And the men started to vomit. The water was deep crimson. The pond was filled to the brim with blood. And the objects floating on the surface were arms, legs, and torsos, the dismembered bodies of the missing children.

• 40:43Kaelyn Moore?

  Once they'd gotten over the shock, the men raced down the road to Sarah's cabin. Smoke was rising from her chimney and they could hear her inside singing a lullaby. The mayor pounded on the door and shouted, "Is that you, Torbit, you witch?" The lullaby stopped, and in its place came a high, cruel laugh. By this point, the men were shaking with rage and with fear. They hadn't planned on doing anything aside from investigating, but what they had seen had changed all that. They hurled their torches through the windows and up onto the roof. The flames swept up the walls and within seconds,

• 41:26Kaelyn Moore?

  the cabin was a billowing inferno. Within minutes, it was so hot that the men had to move back a distance to watch. Despite the intense heat, Sarah Torbit's cold laughter continued to float from the cabin. It echoed over the forest and was heard all the way into town. And to this day, this very day, the lot where Sarah Torbit's house once stood is barren. No plants will grow there. But strange paranormal activities have been reported in the area for years. An enormous black dog has been seen in the area, and every now and then,

• 42:08Kaelyn Moore?

  people catch glimpses of orbs of light dancing over the surface of the pond. They say that those are the spirits of the murdered children. And there have been even stranger sightings. When the moon is full, the water supposedly turns red with blood sometimes. And occasionally, Sarah appears on the far bank, young and as beautiful as ever. She kneels at the water's edge and paints her naked body with the blood from the pond. And then she goes dancing through the woods, singing and laughing. Anyone who hears her voice gets caught in her spell and becomes her next victim.

• 42:49Kaelyn Moore?

  And then there's the cave, the very real Heinz Road Cave. The man who entered it that night never spoke again. But people think he saw the body of Elijah's missing brother. There are videos online of people investigating that cave, and many of them report strange sounds or smells. One woman said she went all the way to the back of the cave and found an enormous dog with all of its skin flayed off, still alive and growling. But just as with any witch story, what's the truth? Was Sarah a misunderstood woman or a bloodthirsty witch? You would have to visit Heinz Road Cave yourself to find out.

• 43:33Kaelyn Moore?

  But maybe you shouldn't. Or if you do, you should invite me. Remember, most Wicked Witches stories were originally meant to be cautionary tales. They come in many different guises, from ugly hags to beautiful enchantresses. But they exist to remind us of the things we shouldn't do, the places we shouldn't go. Don't play near the water. Don't go into the woods. Don't talk to strangers. Even feeble old women can't be trusted. And if you meet the one with the bony leg and the black teeth, don't stop to talk. Turn around and run. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown.

• 44:17Kaelyn Moore?

  Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Additional writing and research by Andrew Kelleher. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstarts pounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.

• 44:38Kaelyn Moore?

  Do you want more Darkly Curious stories in your life? Sign up for our Patreon for free and get access to a rotating shelf of bonus content, our weekly Rogue Detecting Society newsletter, and the HSP Book Club. Paid members also get monthly bonus episodes and archive access, which I think is more than 40 episodes at this point. You also get a cool jinx sticker after your first three months. And you can check it all out with a free seven day trial. Link in the bio or go to patreon.com backslash heart starts pounding. But whatever you do, stay curious.